Emotional Fallout
by kat of longtails
Summary: Things turn critical for Mikoto, Kuroko, and Uiharu as a talented child error reacts badly to the power curriculum program …and has an ever so slight psychological meltdown! :: spoiler free!           :: light Mikoto/Kuroko
1. Prologue: Black Sun

**Emotional Fallout: **a fanfiction of 'To Aru Kagaku no Railgun'

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><p>{<span>AN: a semi cross-over with Touhou, but only in terms of a character transplanted from there to the Index-Railgun universe, utilising the laws of the Index-Railgun universe. No knowledge of Touhou needed! - All comment and (constructive) criticism is greatly appreciated.}

Usual ownership disclaimers apply.

~ o ~

**Prologue: Black Sun**

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><p>The girl's eyes stung as she opened them. She blinked at a sky so unbelievably bright. Yet the last she remembered, it had been a calm cloudy night, pitch black and cool. And indeed it still was that night.<p>

Urging her sore body into moving, she looked around and her eyes adjusted to the burning sun. If she hadn't known better she would have sworn it was mere meters away from her.

It was nothing of the sort. It was a whole 152 meters away and slowly rising.


	2. Chapter 1: The Raven

**Emo****ti****o****nal Fallo****ut**

~ o ~

**Chapter 1: The Raven**

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><p>.<p>

I wonder where Uiharu is? She said she'd meet me here half an hour ago. The Child Errors are going to give us hell, not to mention our Dorm Mistress. She was very… forceful, in insisting I came along today._ "Stood up in the freezing cold. Grr." _I mutter to myself and reach for my phone.

.

_"Uiharu, whe-" _

_"Ahh, Onee-sama, it is I, Kuroko. Uiharu asked me to answer for her." _the fiery twin-tail surprised me.

_"Oh. … So what's keeping her, she was supposed to meet me at the Seventh Mist Monorail Stop …umm…Thirty. Six. Minutes ago." _

_"Sorry Onee-sama, we've been doing Judgment work... It's most curious. A flurry of reports of arson damage, except it doesn't seem to be by pyroma-" _

_"Kuroko!" _I interrupt her 'vocation'.

_"Sorry. Uiharu-san mentioned nothing about meeting you. Maybe she forgot. ..I'll go remind her, ok." _

_"Thank you, Kuroko" _I exhale in frustration. Hell, is it cold! Seriously, I know Judgment work is pretty vital to keeping Academy City safe and all- _"GYAHH!"_

.

~ o ~

.

_"KUH-ROH-KOH!"_ I spark in angry shock as Uiharu and that damned idiot teleporter appear out of thin air right in front of me. …Oh, that timetable ticker was broken before, right, yes, heh heh… _"_

_Onee-sama! I do wish you'd be more careful. Academy City __**already**__ has an anomalous rate of electrical and electronic equipment failures. Buuut, as it happens, I always have something of greater priority to handle." _

I concentrate on focusing all my energy into **only **a lethal scowl as she smirks back at me.

Oh, but yes._ "Uiharu." _

_"My utmost Apologies Misaka-san! I got absorbed in my work and forgot the time." _

_"And my humble self was merely trying to assist my colleague and my beloved senpai"_ adds my smug stalker. I return momentarily to scowling before deciding to apologise.

_"Thank you, Kuroko. You just surprised me. Maybe you could …materialise, slightly further away in future."_ She bows and makes yet another of her comments that simultaneously creeps me out, seems unnecessarily groveling and, well, makes me feel… - Another flash arcs off me and grounds on a tree with a hiss.

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~ o ~ Cypress Park Child Welfare Facility ~ o ~

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_"Raven?, I'd like you to meet Misaka-san, she's one of my pupils. I think you two might get along."_ my Dorm Mistress introduces me in a most underplayed way. Guess I'm overly used to Kuroko's grandesse and swooning. The girl, can't be more than 10, sat on a beanbag in the corner of the room, furthest from the Christmas tree. She looks up, nods and goes straight back to her reading. Compared to the other child errors her response came across as just plain rude and disinterested. In spite of this, my Dorm Mistress motions for me to sit at the table and then promptly abandons me! _"Well, I'll let the two of you get acquainted. If you need me I'll be organising the decorations."_

.

After a minute or so I notice what was on the tablet computer she's browsing; it's **ME! **What the fff-! Why's she reading about me? Me, why me? Crap, crap, crap, I'm blushing! She finally smiles, at my damning reaction. _"Misaka Mikoto. Level 5 Electromaster. Ability to manipulate the flow of electrical charges. Also known as 'Railgun'. At a young age had her DNA us- ….Ehehehe, you're blushing, Mikoto" _

_"Well wouldn't YOU be too! If you just found a stranger, reading about you!" _I blurted out. Urg, looks like one of those stupid gossip boards Uiharu and Saten love.

.

_Sensei says I spend too much time reading physics. She said I should read something…. more… …like others do! Except I guess I saw some science in there." _I begrudgingly excuse her, sidestepping my outburst. Before I could say anything more she starts flailing and grumbled in a most strange manner; trying, I guess, to clear her jet black hair from around her neck. _"Un-yuu? It just irritates me beyond madness."_ I ponder lending her my hair slide. Except last time I did that, my hair went and stabbed my eye! Oh, and I only have one so she'd still be maddened by the other side. But then a pile of decoration pieces catches my eye. Fishing around, while there's plenty of ribbons, there's only one that'll be of any use, although it is rather wide.

_"Here." _

_"Unyu?" _

_"For your hair" _

_"Unny-" _

I sigh in frustration. _"Let me do it" _I say standing up behind her and tying the rear half up high.

.

I'd barely sat down before Saten, who was protecting the presents from the children, lets out a cry _"Suuuugoiii! That green bow looks beautiful on you!" _

_"Unyu, you think so?" _

_"Yes, definitely!" _ Raven beams in response, springing up and doing a twirl. And I think Saten's right, it really does suit her, both the colour and that wide bow.


	3. Chapter 2: Everybody likes Cake!

**Emoti****o****nal Fall****o****ut**

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**Chapter 2: Everybody likes Cake!**

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><p><em>.<em>

A crash echoed across the room, drawing everyone's attention to the tangle of Christmas tree and child errors that a certain level-zero was meant to be supervising.

_"Mikoto! ..errr umm, you as well! Come! Come! Help us decorate!" _she cried as she reached the two of them and literally dragged them over to the disaster area. Someone had left Saten near the sugar-loaded cakes, and everyone was going to pay.

.

About an hour or so later the decorations were complete, everyone had collapsed onto the sofas and was resting. Mikoto was drawn out of her ideal daydreaming, in this case, of defeating that infernal Touma, by the movements of a body nuzzled up against her. With the slightest surprise she saw Raven, asleep, nestled up against her. Indeed it was quite packed for space what with most of the children, and most of their visitors, all competing for space to flake out, but she noticed Raven could have found somewhere else, somewhere amongst her peers, or even just flopped to the other side. But no, standing apart, albeit subtly, from the contiguous puppypile of teens and kids were Mikoto and Raven. Staring at her brought to mind the idea of a small animal, like a baby bird, all curled up on itself, to which Mikoto smiled to herself. After a while her thoughts tangented to her sister, 10032, and her attachment to stray cats. Then it tangented back around to that damned stray and his damned right hand.

.

Before she could dwell on the frustrating matter for too long, a handbell rung out, and with it many sleepyheads were brought back to the land of the living …and food.

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Part way through the meal the topic of powers came up. Initially it was dominated by much excitement and interest in Mikoto, much to her embarrassment, but slowly started to spread out to others' abilities.

.

_"…I guess it's not very exciting to watch, things staying the same temperature. Eheh… But then I am only a level-one." _Uiharu excused.

_" 'Spose you could do more interesting stuff if you got higher, right?_ asked a child.

_"Oh, yes, definitely! …Although the teachers seem to, skirt around what though…."_

_"I'm guessing I'm the only sodding level-zero here then! … I bet you, Raven, even you have one."_ Saten snarked, letting more bitterness show than she intended.

_"Uny-, me? Well I sorta do."_ Raven responded shyly.

_"Sorta?"_

_"I mean, I do, …I guess."_

Raven's admission plied with embarrassment trigger a breakout of speculation and questions from a few of the child errors who were part of the discussion, this quickly took on a life of it's own and spread beyond. After a few minutes of the ever louder rumour mill Mikoto remembered how the dorm mistress had introduced them and wondered if Raven needed her to step in. She coughed loudly, then spoke.

_"Raven, you seem to know so much about my power, but I don't know anything about yours. Could you show me it?"_

_"O.. ok."_

Raven gave an agreeing nod, looked over the contents of the table, picked up a half full glass of water, placed it in front of her, then started staring at it. Mikoto looked at Raven, then at the glass. Everyone else started staring at Raven, or the glass. After a minute the observers started to bore of watching something even less interesting than soup not-getting-cold but then it happened. A bubble rose to the surface then popped. Then another. And another. Then lots of them. Soon it was evident the water was, boiling! _"She's a microwave"_ came one comment, _"That's what a L3 Uiharu-san could do!"_ came another, _"No, she's better than a microwave, she's a PSYCHIC microwave"._

_._

Suddenly Saten stood bolt upright and marched off to the kitchen with the face of someone who had just discovered the way to win a land war in Asia, and was determined to use it. Coming back several minutes later she presented an oversized mug to Raven, then placed it down beside the now quarter-full glass. Raven looked into the mug and eminently summed up the shared confusion _"Uuuunyuu?". _

_"Mug cake!" _Saten replied, beaming.

_"What?"_ asked Mikoto, looking at the yellow slop within the mug.

_"Mug Cake!" _repeated Saten, seemingly convinced she had just been misheard, by everyone, rather than everyone simply thinking she was barking mad.

_"It's a simple cake recipe designed for cooking in under 3 minutes in the microwave! I found it on the net! … If Raven can boil water, I thought maybe she could cook this."_

The center of attention gave the mug another quizzical look and before long the slimy contents started to bubble and expand.

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~ o ~

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_"I just really feel she's not getting the best environment here."_ remarked the Tokiwadai Dorm Mistress.

_"I love this place, I hope there's no doubting that, but I don't think it the best place for Raven. She's dying of boredom, you can see that."_

_"Well, I concede you have a point there, ..buut isn't she just like all the other kids who don't get on so great socially?" _queried the facility head, Shigenomori Kazuko.

_"Hmmm, not really. For a start she's older than ALL the other kids by quite a bit, and secondly while it's just an estimate she shows all the signs of being a level __**three!**__ And that's __**without**__ any training."_

_"Since that's your area I'll take your word for that. But say she is, where else could she go? It's not like the city regularly provides for children like that. …well, ..not since those child error experimentation incidents."_

The dorm mistress sighed, her friend had a point. _"So, you're saying she here because this is the best the city has to offer."_

_"Hmm…. I guess that's sadly the case"_

_"Rrrrgh! This is supposed to be the best place for ability users in the world. There has to be something better for her. ….If we ignore her, we'll be hurting ourselves …as well as her"._


	4. Chapter 3: Don't count your eggs,,,

** Emoti****o****nal Fall****o****ut**

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{**A/N: Looks like I've cause a bit of confusion with relation to the characters and series classification. Sorry!** Basically a while back I wondered how the gang from Railgun would respond to a character with the nuclear powers of Touhou Project's Utsuho (a.k.a Okuu). Rather than create a copycat character I instead borrowed her for the story, adjusting some bits to make her fit the universe. I initially listed the story as a cross-over as, technically, it is one, but upon realising that cross-over stories are sidelined under FFnet's index re-marked it as just a ToAruIndex one, since it's heavily weighted to the Railgun side and needs no knowledge of Touhou or Okuu to understand or enjoy. Also, the avoid with Okuu's name will make sense in time, I promise.

Sorry again!}

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**Chapter 3: Don't count your Eggs before they're boiled**

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><p>.<p>

I looked at myself in the mirror, it was the last week of March. A grey pleated skirt, white shirt, light brown jacket and my own choices, a green hair ribbon and black kneesocks. The '_To-ki-wa-dai' _Girls' High School winter uniform. The Dorm Mistress' eyes met with mine in the mirror.

_"Well don't you look smart. Almost as much as you are."_

_"Unyu?"_ she had lost me again.

_"You look ready to truly harness your power, my dear Raven."_

I looked back at her. I didn't know what I felt, …or how I looked. But this meant I got to spend more time with Mikoto, so I was happy.

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~ o ~

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Me and Mikoto were lounging in her dorm room a few days later, the first time since my official entry, when my stomach grumbled.

_"Unyu? I'm hungry."_

_"Oh, is there something you'd like to eat?"_ asked Mikoto.

_"Ermm, ooo. OOO! Yep, eggs!"_

_"Ahhh, how do you like them, fried, omerice, raw…" _she wondered, idly rolling her head from side to side.

_"Nope. I like to boil them!"_

_"Heh, of course you would. Okay, well we'll go get some from the kitchen"_

So both of us walked down to the dormitory kitchen, but on the way Mikoto went quiet, looking at me strangely, like she didn't want me to know she was looking. Then she asked me.

_"Raven,…."_

_"Unyu?"_

_"Why, are y… What hap- ….How did you come to be at the Cypress Park?"_

_"Oh, unnn- well they looked for somewhere to send me and that was the first to come up."_

_"Oh. No. That's not what I ..meant. …..I mean, how did you come to be a child error? _

_"Ohhh….W-"_

_"Please __**you don't have to if you don't want to!**__ …Sorry if it's a sensitive subject."_

_"It's okay Mikoto, if it's you that wants to know."_

_._

_It was last summer, I lived with my mummy, Satori, and older sister, Rin. We lived in this little house out in the woods at the bottom of the mountains. Just the three of us. I loved it. My main duty was collecting firewood and keeping the stove going. Then one day, maybe a month or so before then, Professor Yasaka visited the first time._

_._

_It was a hot and humid night, but I followed my duty and kept the fire going, so we could all eat and bathe. Mummy came in with this stranger woman. She called herself Professor Yasaka Kanako and said she was searching the countryside for children with special powers and had heard about me, a child unable to be burnt. And she was right. Many moons before Rin and me had been playing before bathtime and I was silly and tried to pour the bath myself. I got covered in hot water, and a bit got on Rin's foot. It hurt so so much and we had to take Rin to the doctor to get her foot treated, but I wasn't burnt at all. Mummy called it a miracle._

_._

_After she heard that, the Professor came to visit lots, sometimes she stayed the night, to do experiments with my ability. I enjoyed the science a lot. After a while she worked out I was immune to heat because my ability must be something to do with controlling or producing heat. Well after many attempts to find my ability and no success she went away for almost a week to get something special and came back with this cube of silvery metal. 'Uranium', she called it. And I could feel it. I don't mean like as in touching, I could sense it being there, even without looking at it. It was spooky. Like magic. And looking at it for a while I felt like it was calling to me, like it was shaking and every so often there would be a bang I could sense and whole cube would ring with the shock. I would just sit there and stare at it. The professor said I could sense the atoms inside it, and that I had an amazing ability. She said she thought I might be able to control those atoms. And the more I watched the cube, the more I noticed the feeling was the opposite of one I had felt all my life. Wetness. Wetness and water felt sparkly to me, a pink sparkliness. And I felt this with other things that weren't wet. Air was slightly wet, pale pink, sparkly, as was wood. But the Uranium, it felt purple and shaky, which reminded me of one time I had felt that before. One day we had gone on a family picnic into the mountains and Rin and me had gone into a cave and the rocks felt pale blue and the air smelt purple and shaky. Strange, stale, pale purple, shaky air. But most of all dryness, both the rocks and the air felt like dry to me, but not normal dryness, a blue dryness. Mummy had said the locals wouldn't live in the caves as the air was bad. 'Ray-don', she said. In comparison this dull silvery cube glowed a bright shaky blue to me._

_._

_It was a few nights later, the Professor thought I could make the cube get hot by controlling the atoms. I had just had my bath with Rin, and thought I might be able to squeeze the atoms in the water together, making the little puddles of the water dry up. I'd tried it and the water just got warm, it didn't dry but it did get hotter. I bounded out the bath and tried to find the professor to tell her about this, but I couldn't find her. Mummy said she had gone on a walk as it was a cool dark night and she wanted to see the glowworms, but I was too excited, I ran to the cube and tried the same on it as I had on the water._

_._

_Nothing, nothing happened. I was trying so hard, but I could feel the atoms resisting, they felt soo heavy, unlike the ones in the water. Then an idea struck me, if the water was red, and the uranium was blue, maybe I needed to do the opposite! As I concentrated with all my strength the cube started to ping and shake all over, like the whole thing was coming apart. Then, within a second there was a blinding flash._

_._

_I woke up afterwords. I'm not sure how long afterwords it was. The sky was bright, like day. I was on my back, at the bottom of a crater. Except it wasn't day, and it was where my home had been. Where Rin had been. Where Mummy had been. The brightness of the sky was from a ball of fire, a dirty black sun rising up into the clouds. I searched for them for hours and days, all that was left was ash, dirty, white and black ash. And it was all my fault._

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I shook my head._ "Oh, well, my whole family died in a fire" _was all I said. _"Oh … I'm so sorry"_ was all she said.

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~ o ~

_._

Once we returned to her room with the eggs, Mikoto led me into a little kitchen that she said her and Kuroko had to themselves.

.

Mikoto went and filled a kettle with water and went to electrify it.

_"Oh, don't do that"_ I said.

_"Whyso? How else are you going t- ahhhh! Of course! How silly of me!"_ she realised.

_"Yep!"_ I smiled the biggest smile possible.

Mikoto filled a saucepan with cold water and passed it to me. Seven minutes later my eggs were done.

As I started to unpeel the first of my eggs I noticed my senpai looking oddly at my, I think she was jealous.

_"Unyu?"_

_"Oh, ermm. -"_ she blushed.

_"- I was just admiring the practicality of your ability. …Is it possible for you to heat the eggs dir.e..ct….."_ she trailed off, then picked up one of the eggs, held her palm out flat in front of her face, placed an egg on it, put her other palm flat on top, and looked at it with a determined face. Her tongue even stuck out a bit.

.

'POP!' went the egg, as the first sparks of electricity passed through it, and the contents splattered across both of us, staining our uniform shirts. I don't think I've seen anything as red as her face then and burst out laughing.

_"…I..I …ah ha ha, I could heat the egg directly but, ehehe, it would heat unevenly and might crack, get burnt, or heh, ….explode"_.

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><p>.<p>

_{A/N: Well that's the end of Chapter 3. Hope you all liked it! _

_I've got several further chapters already finished, the remaining all plotted out, and have just passed the 10,000 word threshold for the finished chapters :D **, but** the next immediate one, chapter 4, is proving troublesome to write ...but then it is the pivotal one that changes the whole tone of things. _

_Wish me luck!}_


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